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“Come on, are you really expecting us to read that chick book?” Beau asked while we skated back to line up for the faceoff.
“Hey, I froze my balls off for you on a rickety old boat.” Trey shoved my shoulder. “And I bathed fifteen dogs for you.” He pointed the end of his stick at Beau.
“You fuckers owe me.” Trey leveled his gaze at both of us. “Read the book.” Then he swiftly turned and shot off to the center line.
Beau looked at me. “I guess we’re reading a chick book.”
I chuckled and hit him on the shoulder. “I’m halfway through. It’s pretty good, actually.”
His eyebrows rose under his drenched and dripping hair. “You’re reading it?”
I nodded and started moving forward. “It’s a quick read,” I said as I moved past him. “It won’t take you long.”
The only reply I heard was him saying, “Christ,” under his breath. Which only made me laugh.
Three days later, we sat in the courtyard. Jillian and Wyatt walked toward us—both of them wearing smiles. “He was a good boy,” she said and handed his leash to me. Her fingers grazed my hand, and I felt a bolt of electricity up my arm.
“Thanks for picking him up,” I said and took a long drink from my water bottle. The men had a meeting after practice, today. Jillian offered to pick Wyatt up from doggie daycare and take him to the dog park for a while.
The last two weeks, she’d been helping me out with the dog—just like she’d said she would.
A part of me liked having an extra hand with him. Especially when I was on the road.
I’d made arrangements at a local doggie hotel—yes, that was what they called it—for Wyatt. But when I told Jillian she wouldn’t have to worry about him for a few days because he’d be there—let’s just say she didn’t take it that well.
“You don’t trust me to look after him? He can stay with me. I’ll take him to doggie care while you’re gone.”
My instincts told me this was a bad idea.
A real fuckin’ bad idea.
We weren’t a couple.
At best, we were faking a friendship.
And Jillian’s interest in Wyatt seemed like—more than what a friend should do. She was in his daily life.
Which meant she was also in my daily life.
And trust me, it was difficult enough seeing Jillian in the courtyard and at the rink every day. But having her at my place, talking to me, texting me—it was just too fucking much.
Mostly because all I wanted to do was pull her in close and kiss the hell out of those plump lips of hers.
Damn it. I was going to have to speak to her.
“It was fun. He loves playing with the other dogs.” She gave me a soft smile before saying her goodbyes to Beau and Trey.
Beau looked at me with a critical eye while he opened his energy drink. “How’s,” he nodded toward Jillian’s retreating form, “that going.”
I drank the rest of my water and shrugged. “It’s going.”
It was Trey’s turn to poke his nose in. “Are you guys really friends, now?”
I wanted to say, “Fuck, no.”
Instead, I said, “Yeah, of course. We’re both adults. Whatever happened in the past—is done. There’s no reason we can’t get along. She’s a great woman and an even better friend.”
Jesus Christ.
